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And find your pair. Ah, yes. Happy Friday. Happy Friday. Happy Friday, everyone. Welcome to the Joy Reid Show. A big up to everybody in the chat. I'm watching y' all in the chat. Folks talking about they miss my MSNBC show. You don't have to miss it because we're right here. We're right here on not just YouTube but also on Substack and Spotify. So big up to everybody who is listening, wherever you're listening, all the ships at sea. Big ups to our team TJRS members. I see reflective MVs in there. I see dot mom. Dot mom. That's a cool name. Thank you to all of you who have joined Team tjs. We appreciate y'. All. We have a big show tonight. We have a lot going on. It's actually going to be action packed. We have a lot of guests. We are going to talk to a lot of folks. I did promise y' all on social media and I am later on in the show going to share my thoughts on the Purple Revolution. This Purple Revolution business that I actually learned about in the chat. So big ups to those who were in the private chat that we did last week, Friday, and they told me about this pro revolution. So I've now looked it up. I now know what it is. I will give you my thoughts on it next hour. We're also going to talk about the New Orleans mayor's race. It's actually, you have to vote tomorrow if you're in New Orleans. We're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about the ongoing government shutdown. Apparently Kristi Nome is playing propaganda videos in every airport. You go to the airport and there's like a Kristi Gnome propaganda video. No word on whether her face falls off at the end of each video, but she's playing that, trying to blame Democrats for the shutdown even though Republicans controlled the entire government, which is illegal. The Hatch act violations of all kinds happening. But we're going to talk about that as well. It's going to be a time. We have an interesting story about Nigeria doing something that's going to seem very familiar to you. So we've got that, too. Lots and lots coming up. I've also got one of my favorite social media stars that it's going to be on. And I will we'll talk about that in our next hour. But today being Friday, it is the day that 79 year old Donald Trump got his second health check checkup in five months, Mr. Canel and weird marks on his hand. He already had a checkup earlier in the year, but he's having another one less than five months later. So we don't know what that's about. But that happened. This is also the day that he did not win the Nobel Peace Prize. Donald Trump's been screaming, begging, crying, whining for a Nobel Peace Prize he did not get is a prize which I should remind you, was established in 1895 under Alfred Nobel. And it goes to, and I'm going to quote this, the person who has done the most or best to advance fellowship among nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the establishment and promotion of peace congresses. Does that sound like Donald Trump to you? Because it certainly didn't sound like I like Donald Trump to the Nobel Committee because they didn't give it to him. Instead, they gave it to a former legislator and industrial engineer from Venezuela named Maria Corina Machado and they gave it to her, quoting them for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy in Venezuela. By the way, the people of Norway, the leadership in Norway, they're bracing for retaliatory tariffs or some sort of retaliation from Trump because he's so mad that he didn't get the Nobel Peace Prize. Now, Mrs. Machado, she is a right wing politician, I will note, and some folks, my social media noted this, too. She's a right winger. She actually praised Trump when she got it. But, you know, she had this sort of emotional call with the Nobel Committee. And then on her social media, she did this thing that politically a lot of people do, which is they praise Trump. And she talked about his support for her because she and Trump are both against Nicolas Maduro, at least on paper. Remember, it's Venezuela who ships the US like bombed in the Caribbean. So there's, there's a whole undercurrent of what's going on in terms of is this some sort of proxy thing? But anyway, either way, she got it. Trump was mad about it. His people said the Nobel Committee cares more about politics than peace, even though Marco Rubio really likes Machado. It's a very strange thing. She would be president, except that the Maduro regime prevented her from running, made it illegal for her to run. She's been shot at by Maduro's goons, and she's been targeted by federal prosecutors in that country to keep her from running for president. All very strange stuff, right? Which brings me to the news that in our miserable little former democracy, Federal grand jury has indicted New York Attorney General Letitia James. Letitia James. Here is the text of that New York Times story that's up on your screen. A prosecutor handpicked by Donald Trump secured an indictment of the New York Attorney General on bank fraud and false statement charges in the Eastern District of Virginia on Thursday after the president publicly demanded Ms. James be charged. The investigation of Ms. James, a new York Democrat who brought a civil case against Mr. Trump, successfully focused on two homes that she ordered that she owned in Norfolk, Virginia, and in Brooklyn. A Trump housing official had referred the case to the justice department, suggesting that Ms. James might have falsified records related to those homes. They're claiming she netted, like $19,000 in rental income on the other home, which is way below what anyone would even be thought about by the federal government for. But in this case, she did something that made Trump mad and he wanted her indicted. The indictment of Attorney General James came two weeks after the prosecutor, Lindsay Halligan, indicted James Comey, the former FBI director, on charges that he lied to Congress. He didn't lie to Congress. Comey has pleaded guilty. Not guilty. Sorry. He's pleaded not guilty to those charges. He did that on Wednesday and accused Ms. Halligan of vindictive and selective prosecution. I want to play for you the video response from Leticia James. This is a four for Jason. She actually released a video yesterday in which she responded, here that is. This is nothing more than a continuation of the president's desperate weaponization of our justice system. He is forcing federal law enforcement agencies.
- [06:29]
C
To do his bidding, all because I.
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B
Did my job as the New York State Attorney General. These charges are baseless, and the president's own public statements make clear that his only goal is political retribution at any cost. The president's actions are a grave violation of our constitutional order and have drawn sharp criticism from. From members of both parties. His decision to fire a United States attorney who refused to bring charges against.
- [07:03]
C
Me and replace them with someone who is blindly loyal not to the law.
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B
But to the president, is antithetical to the bedrock principles of our country.
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C
This is the time for leaders on.
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B
Both sides of the aisle to speak out against this blatant perversion of our system of Justice I stand strongly behind my office's litigation against the Trump Organization.
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C
We conducted a two year investigation based.
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B
On the facts and evidence, not politics. Judges have upheld the trial court's finding that Donald Trump, his company and his two sons are liable for fraud. I'm a proud woman of faith, and.
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C
I know that faith and fear cannot.
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B
Share the same space. And so today, I'm not fearful.
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C
I'm fearless. And as my faith teaches me, no.
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B
Weapon formed against me shall prosper. We will fight these baseless charges aggressively, and my office will continue to fiercely protect New Yorkers and their rights. And I will continue to do my job. Amen. Tish James not backing down. I want to know that about an hour ago, there was a hands off Tisch rally that kicked off in New York City. And we're going to keep an ear out for any updates on that over the course of the next two hours. I'm noting in the chat that folks are noting, yes, Don Lemon is in Chicago reporting on the ground. I'll text them later and see how that's going. So folks are converging on Chicago, hearing there might be some issues, people getting into the airport because, you know, obviously the shutdown is now impacting our airports. A lot of. We're going to talk about that in the next hour as well. I will note that groups like the NAACP are mobilizing to support Attorney General James nationwide. Now, as for Lindsey Halligan, she replaced the very experienced prosecutors who, as you just heard AG James say, were pushed out of their jobs, fired by the Justice Department for refusing to bring indictments against Comey and Tish James, citing, you know, a lack of evidence of actual crimes. A lack of evidence of actual crimes. Unlike what they had on Tom Homan when he took a cava bag full of cash from some f undercover FBI agents. They had that, but they're like, that's not a crime. But $19,000 for rental income on, on a home in Brooklyn, in Virginia, now that's a crime. Here's what the Daily Beast has to say about old Lindsay, whose prior job in The Trump regime 2.0 was to rid the nation's museums of all that unpleasant stuff about slavery. I think we have a video of her. So like just about every other country in the world, the United States has got a checkered past. I mean, what should we do in.
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A
Terms of our museum?
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B
Should, should we ignore that?
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A
Should that be massaged in a certain.
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Way to make it less significant?
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D
I mean, some of the worst episodes.
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B
In our history were formative experiences that led us to where we are today. And those typically are reflected in museums. Yep. I think they're. The fact that we had. Our country was involved in slavery is awful. No one. No one thinks otherwise. But what I saw when I was going through the museums personally was an overemphasis on slavery. And I think there should be more of an overemphasis on how far we've come since slavery. Our country is a country of progress, and it's the greatest country in the world, and we should be able to take our kids, our students, through the Smithsonian and feel proud when we leave. There's a lot of history to our country, both positive and negative, but we need to keep moving forward. Okay, all right, that's enough. Thank you, Lindsay. Thank you. Divide us. And we really need to. Yeah, okay. She seems bright. Oh, Jesus. The contrast between hearing Letitia James and hearing her is like. And then maps. She seems really bright. No wonder that no other DOJ lawyers were willing to sign on to her indictments. Like, literally, it was just her name on them. And none were willing to go into court with her either. Here's what the Daily Beast reports about this lady, Lindsay Halligan. Prior to her appointment, Halligan had no prosecutorial experience. A former Miss Colorado USA beauty pageant contestant back when, you know, Trump had the Miss Universe franchise, the 36 year old was a personal attorney to Trump while he was out of office. From January till September, Halligan was a special assistant to the president and a White House staff secretary. And just to show you. Let me show you how God is. Jason, please put up a picture of the judge that this case has been assigned. There he is. That's the judge, y'.
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C
All.
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B
He is US District Judge Jamar K. Walker. Jamar, like, we have a son named Jamar. Jamar K. Walker. A President Joe Biden appointee, y'. All. His name is Jamar. That's the judge that's going to hear this case. This should be great. And the bigger picture of this indictment is there actually is someone in this story who is a liar. And not just any kind of liar. Like a liar under oath, a liar under oath. Not, you know, which is technically a federal crime. Not that we have a Justice Department anymore. We just don't have a Department of Justice. All we have is, you know, Donald Trump's personal law firm that just goes after people who make him mad. And the way that I know that the person that is the actual liar in this case is someone named Pam Bondi. How I know that is because the tape still exists of her lying, lying to United States senators in sworn testimony before the same Senate Judiciary Committee in January that she just met with last week. In fact, I want to play for you a couple of things. This is Pam Bondi lying to Senator Hawaii Senator May Hirono, who asked her what she would do if President Donald Trump were to ask her to prosecute his claimed political enemies. Listen to this suggests or hints that you, as Attorney General, should investigate one of his perceived political enemies. Would you do so? Senator Hirono, I wish you had met with me. Had you met with me, we could have discussed many things and gotten to. I'm listening to you now. Could you respond to the question? Yeah. You were the only one who refused to meet with me, Senator. But what we would have discussed is, is that it is the job of the Attorney General.
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A
I'm very happy to listen to your.
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B
Responses under oath, Ms. Bondi. So I think it's really important to us that the Attorney General be independent of the White House. And you have a President elect who considers the AG's office his law firm. Okay. And now here is Senator Hirono this week, same Senator Hirono, same Pambandi, asking the Trump regime's Leni Riefenstahl about the indictment of James Comey. An indictment against James Comey. That social media post behind me saying what about Comey was directed to Pam. Are you the Pam that the President was referring to? I'm sure I was. Okay. So it's very clear to me that when the President posts something like that, that he considers the DOJ to be his law firm and you his lawyer. And in fact, very shortly after the post to you, Comey gets indicted. So. Well, okay, in that case, well, she actually didn't lie. She did admit that she is Pam. She is the Pam Donald Trump was referring to. So a one for Pam Bondi. Now, Hirono also asked about other people that Trump hates. Jack Smith, Liz Cheney, Merrick Garland. I think all of them should probably start lawyering up now, not because they did anything wrong, but because Trump hates them. And if you know baby Donnie hates you, mean old Auntie Pam and her little pageant queen friends are going to indict you. Let's listen to Senator Chris Coons of Delaware back in January asking Pam when she was going to get conferred at the time when she was trying to get confirmed as Attorney General, if she was going to take direction from the President when it comes to prosecutions. But I know you may not expect it. I know you wouldn't have accepted this nomination if you thought it possible. But let's imagine that once again, President Elect Trump issues a directive or order to you or to the FBI director that is outside the boundaries of ethics or law. What will you do, Senator? I will never speak on a hypothetical, especially one saying that the president would do something illegal. What I can tell you is my duty, if confirmed as the Attorney General, will be to the Constitution and the United States of America. And the most important oath, part of that oath that I will take are the last four words, so help me God. Yeah, well, okay. Well, I wonder how God feels about the fact that the prosecutors who work for you, Pam, just indicted a lady that your own prosecutors, career prosecutors that work under you, said didn't commit any crime. But, you know, there are CNN reports claiming, and I don't know where this came from, they might have come from the doj, that Bondi was initially unaware that Lindsey Halligan was bringing this case and the timing of it. They knew it was going to come. They didn't know when. And she was kind of blindsided. I don't know if that's, like, a leak to try to help Pam Bondi look a little less like a liary liar, but. Okay, let's play Chris Coons. Here is Chris Coons asking Pam Bondi about what happens when Donald Trump asks her to do things.
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D
I think we just.
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B
Oh, we played that one. Sorry. Let's do Amy Klobuchar. My bad. Amy Klobuchar. That was the past. Chris Coons down there on September 20.
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C
2025, in which the President said, we can't delay any longer. Pam, using your name, not bringing criminal charges are killing our reputation, his words and credibility. And then goes on to tell you to prosecute a member of this committee, to prosecute the Attorney General of New.
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B
York and to prosecute James Comey.
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C
Do you consider that a directive to the Justice Department?
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B
Senator Klobuchar, President Trump is the most transparent president in American history. And I don't think he said anything that he hasn't said for years. Okay, okay. She's very good at dodging. You know, I think she's aware that she's under oath, and she wants to make sure that she doesn't actually commit a crime because she realizes this regime ain't gonna last forever. So. So she's being very dodgy there. But I want to play one more. This is Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, and this is going back again to January. Asking again, America's Lani Riefenstah if she and Cash Valhalla Patel would operate off of a Trump enemies list. She eventually gets there. Toward the end of this clip, would.
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A
You have hired someone into the Florida.
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D
Attorney General's office who you knew had an enemies list?
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B
Senator, to cut to the chase, you're clearly talking about Cash Patel. I don't believe he has an enemies list. He made a quote on TV which I have not heard. I saw your, your sign or Senator Durbin's sign about Cash. But I, I know that Cash Patel has had 60 jury trials as a public defender, as a prosecutor. He has great experience in the Intel Department, Department of Defense. I have known Cash and I believe that Cash is the right person at this time for this job. And you'll have the ability to question Mr. Patel and I'm questioning you right.
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A
Now about whether you will enforce an enemy's list that he announced publicly on television.
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B
Oh, Senator, I'm sorry. There will never be an enemies list within the Department of Justice. Never, never, never. Well, obviously that wasn't true because once again I want to put back up again the Trump intended DM that actually went public to Pam. Pam, I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that essentially same old story as last time, all talk, no action, nothing is being done. What about Comey Adam Shifty, Schiff, Lat Alicia, three question marks. They are all guilty as hell but nothing is going to be done. Then we almost put a Democrat supported U.S. attorney in Virginia with a really bad Republican past. A woke rhino who was never going to do his job. That's why two of the worst Dem senators pushed him so hard. He even lied to the media and said he quit and that we had no case. No, I fired him. And then there is a great one of many lawyers and legal pundits say so. Lindsey Halligan is a really good lawyer and likes you a lot. We can't delay any longer. It's killing our reputation and credibility. They impeached me twice and indicted me five times over nothing. Justice must be served. Now President Donald Trump and then poof, surprise, surprise, two of the three people he names get indicted. How does that work? Pam Bondi? I don't know. It seems like maybe she's working for Donald Trump. Joining me now, do we have our guests? I don't know if we have our guests. Let me know. We do. Joining me now is New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin. Attorney General Plotkin, thank you so much for being here. I just want to get your reaction. Reaction to what? Really? Well, I'll just let you react. Do you view the indictment of your fellow Attorney General, Letitia James, as political?
- [20:26]
E
Well, Joy, first of all, thank you for having me. And this is a really dark day. This is a red line that in this nation, in democratic societies, we're not supposed to cross. You do not weaponize the criminal justice system against people with whom you have political disagreements. And in this case, here are some things. I know, I know that President Trump sent a message to his attorney General saying that she should indict Jim Comey. Tish James. I know he's called her corrupt. I know he's called her scum. I know he said she was, quote, guilty of something. He couldn't identify what that was. I know that when career prosecutors, every single one of them, didn't want to bring this case, he replaced the prosecutor that he himself had appointed and put in somebody who has zero prosecution experience, who wasn't from that state, who worked in insurance to be as lackey, who herself went into the grand jury and was the only person to sign that indictment. Those are things that are irrefutable. And I have brought a lot of cases as Attorney general. The idea that I would ever put forth an indictment that I was the only person willing to sign in my entire department, I simply cannot fathom it. And so, yes, you can't come to any other conclusion than that this smacks of one of the most blatant political prosecutions in American history. And it's a deeply dark and disturbing day and moment for our nation.
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B
Right. Donald Trump has called for John Bolton to be indicted. There's now rumor mill that he is on the way to doing the same. I mean, when two of the three people that are in that dm, it was intended to be a dm, but he actually made it public. When two of the three of those people then get indicted within a month of that dm, it's hard to see it any other way. James Comey, who has pleaded not guilty in this seemingly trumped up case against him, he is now, apparently his lawyers are preparing to move to dismiss the indictment based on malicious prosecution. Just as a, as a legal matter, is that something that could happen?
- [22:41]
E
Well, look, Jim Comey is well represented. Tish James is well represented. I trust their lawyers are going to bring the motions that they see as appropriate. And, you know, they're more familiar with all the facts of their case. So I want to state that. But it certainly raises the specter of political or malicious prosecution and selective prosecution when again, you have a president ordering his Attorney General to bring a case when stories. And we know that career prosecutors would not bring the case. We know that the leadership he selected would not bring the case. This was true for Jim Comey and it's true here for Tish James. And we know that, again, the only person willing to put her name on a document that produced an indictment is the US Attorney herself, who has zero qualifications when it comes to criminal prosecution. Yeah, I think they've got a pretty good argument that this is a selective and malicious political prosecution.
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B
Donald Trump has also called for the arrest and prosecution of the governor of Illinois, the mayor of Chicago, and any governors and mayors who refuse to go along with his invasion by, in many cases, southern military troops that are being brought north into northern and blue cities. I believe he's also threatened the governor of New Jersey. At this stage, it's hard to not take those threats seriously. Right. Because he calls for an indictment to happen. And it appears that Pam Bondi's shop executes.
- [24:15]
E
Yeah. I think my general philosophy on this administration from January 20th through honest is you take what they say literally and you take it seriously because they're not in the business of saying one thing and doing the other. They're doing exactly what they said they're going to do. They said they were going to target political opponents. They've targeted political opponents. They said they were going to go after universities, they're going after universities. They said they were going to go after cities where they have political disagreements. They're going after those cities. They're sending the military onto the streets of those cities using bogus pretexts and unlawful means to do it. So every single thing they've said they're going to do, they have done. And here we are nine months in, ten months into an administration that is acting in every single way like an authoritarian regime. And if we don't start waking up to what's happening here, we are going to be in a place where we look and say what the hell happened to our country, the America I know, Democrats, Republicans, they do not even contemplate the idea that you can wake up and fire a prosecutor and put your political crony in who's going to bring up trumped up charge against a political adversary. That's what happens in Russia, that's what happens in China. It's not what's supposed to happen in the United States of America. And yet that is exactly what we're seeing now on an almost daily basis. We cannot let this become normal.
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B
I want to note that we don't have the video of it, but it's on my social media. A journalist named Debbie Brockman, who is a producer for WGN in Illinois, was forcibly detained by ICE today while she was trying to do her job in coverage or journalists are being arrested. And Attorney General Plattkin, I will note that in your very state, the very first political arrests did happen in New Jersey. It was Ross Baraka, the mayor of Newark, and it was also Lamonica McIver, who is also being prosecuted by this Justice Department. It feels very targeted, as if a message is being sent to blue states or to states that didn't vote for Donald Trump that to your point, this is an authoritarian regime that is going to jail anyone who resists them. Is that the way you view it?
- [26:26]
E
Yeah, look, we certainly did experience it here. We saw Mayor Baraka, mayor of our largest city in the state, arrested for trespass while he was essentially standing on Newark property. And they dismissed the case. I think less than two weeks later. We saw them charge, as you noted, Representative McIver, and as I said at the time, the decision to charge a public official, something I've done. The decision to charge a public official is an extraordinary one. You need clear evidence of criminal conduct and intent. You do not take that decision lightly because of how serious it is to charge a public official in our system. You don't hold them to a lesser standard or higher standard, but you take that decision as the weighty one that it is. They do not seem to care. The idea that you would charge a mayor and dismiss it 12 days later and not be embarrassed by it and not say, hey, maybe we did something wrong. The idea that you would go to court and routinely lose and get injunctions issued, injunction after injunction after injunction, meaning courts are saying, this is so bad, we gotta stop you from doing it. That never should happen against the government. And it's happening on an almost daily basis. And they just don't seem to care. And so, you know, the hope that there were going to be cooler heads that would prevail here, we gotta assume the otherwise, because we are not seeing anybody behave in a way that's consistent with the norms of this nation. So, you know, we're going to keep fighting across the board and in the courts. We have to. But the American people need to stand up and say, this is not who we are. This is not who we are as a nation. This is not the principles of this nation that we all grew up believing existed. And I think we're in a very scary moment right now.
- [28:05]
B
Exit question to you are The Democratic attorneys generals having conversations on the background about how to protect your citizens, the citizens of your state. Because it now does seem that any person of color walking down the street, any journalist, any member of Congress, any state lawmaker, there's no one, there's no safety net, there's nowhere to be safe. And there is no Department of Justice because Pam Bondi is running it as Donald Trump's personal law firm. Are state AGs coming up with some sort of a plan to protect the American people state by state?
- [28:37]
E
Well, Joy, we started in early 2024 preparing, based again, we took seriously what he said. We took seriously what was said in Project 2025. And we're certainly taking seriously everything he's doing now. You're seeing Attorney General in D.C. brian Schwab litigating the military in his district. You're seeing Kwame Raul in Illinois, Dan Rayfield in Oregon, Rob Bonton in California. We're all supporting them. And we have an obligation, all of us. We took an oath to protect the residents of our state, to stand up for the rule of law and the Constitution of our nation and the states that we serve. And we would be derelict in our responsibility if we didn't. These aren't close legal questions of whether he can do the types of things that he's saying he's doing. What I really want to understand is why it's not 50 states so President Trump can completely gut the education system in your state. Telling kids with special needs that they don't get services literally the night before those payments are supposed to come in has happened because to every single state in this nation was only states with Democratic elected or appointed attorneys general that filed that suit. And I don't understand why, because there are kids in public schools in all 50 states. And we won that suit just like we've won almost all of our cases. And so, yeah, we're going to keep fighting and standing up. This is not a moment for cowardice or being mealy mouthed. This is a moment to say we are not going to stand for this as a nation. And those of us in positions of power damn well better do something about it because otherwise, again, we're going to wake up not too long from now and wonder where our country went.
- [30:08]
B
Yeah, indeed. Thank you for being here. Very, very quickly, before I let you go, the governor of Illinois has said that there was a demand made of the state of Illinois to turn over all of their voting rolls. That is what the governor there is saying. Has there been such a demand from the Federal government to the state of New Jersey. To your knowledge.
- [30:24]
E
Look, without knowing exactly what Governor Pritzker referencing, we know that they are. They have said very publicly that they have concerns again about a variety of things with respect to elections. I'm very proud of the fact that we have free and fair elections in New Jersey. And we, by the way, have a lot of them, including one in a few weeks. And we're going to have a free and fair election here that's going to be safe, it's going to be secure, and we're not going to let interference get in the way of what is a really important election in our state.
- [30:53]
B
Yeah, a very important election. A very interesting one. Attorney General Matthew Plotkin of the great state of New Jersey, thank you so much, sir. Really appreciate you being here. Thank you.
- [31:00]
E
Thanks, Joy.
- [31:01]
B
Appreciate it. Thank you very, very much. All right, you guys. Well, there you have it. New Jersey fighting back. Blue states fighting back against what really amounts to an invasion, a southern invasion, a neo Confederate invasion of the Union by the Confederacy. Basically the neo Confederacy. Let me move on. I subscribe to a bunch of substacks and one of my favorites is called Al Qabulan, which is written and recorded. Cause there's also like an audio podcast piece to it and frequent social media posts by a Nigerian content creator who calls himself the Merc. I want to read you a little bit of his latest offering. The title is. It's interesting, right? Because it's going to resonate with what's happening in this country. The title is Nigeria Deleted its own History. What? Yeah, let me read a little bit of this quote. When I first learned that Nigeria had no history in its schools, I thought it was a rumor, a made up story for clicks and engagement on social media. How could a nation so vast, so rich in culture, decide that history didn't matter? Then I cast my mind back to my school days in Lagos and then realized what I'd learned wasn't history, but rather social studies. It wasn't a rumor. In 1982, under the new 6334 education system, the government removed history from junior secondary schools. They folded it into something called social studies, a curated mix of lessons designed to emphasize the unity of Nigeria as a state. No deep dive into kingdoms before colonialism. No serious study of the Civil War. Just a neat story about the Federal Union. By 2009, things got worse. History wasn't just diluted, it was erased. Under Imaru Musa Yar Adua, the new basic curriculum eliminated history completely from both primary and junior secondary schools. For over a decade, Nigerian children grew up with no structured history education at all. Wild, right? Do we have the Merc? Is he here?
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D
He's not here yet.
- [33:00]
B
Oh, he's not here yet. Oh, okay. We're gonna wait for him to get here. I'm excited to talk to him, so hopefully he will be here. Now. He not only does this site called the Merc, but he also has a graphic novel series called the Crusaders, which is actually very cool. It's like a graphic novel. But I am excited to talk to him. We're gonna let him get in. But while we're waiting for the Merc to get here, the reason that I care about this story and the reason it's interesting is that Nigeria, which is a huge country, like 162 million people, it's a big, big country, one of the largest countries on the African continent. It is an object lesson in what happens when a country makes an affirmative decision to erase and eliminate its history. To eliminate it, erase it all together so that it doesn't exist. So that people won't know what happened at all. Such that you can kind of do to them what you will. The fact that that was done in Nigeria and that people didn't even notice it until later, and that students grew up going through school, going through the entire school system, not knowing anything about the history of their own country is actually terrifying. And the fact that that could happen here is the reason that I find this really fascinating. Because if it can be done in Nigeria, and recall Nigeria is a country that's like bifurcated. There's a Muslim calf and there's like a Christian half. And they go at it, they fight about it, right? And so there's not a lot of unity. And there was a literal civil war that was effectively erased from history. Seem familiar? Our civil war was treated basically the same way. We had a civil war that was over whether or not the country was going to be a slave holding nation or was going to be a free nation. It couldn't be both. But after the civil war was over, what happened was not a reckoning with the fact that we were a slave plantation economy. And there was no reckoning with the people who were enslaved and what to do with the people who were enslaved and therefore had very little literacy, very little economic opportunity, no land, no nothing to start from. They just were. Slavery just ended. And this group of people were here, trapped, stuck here, couldn't really go anywhere. And there they were, right? And there was no idea what to do with them. And so rather than reckon with that and figure out how to make those people whole, something like a reparations to sort of make those people whole so that they could start off on an even playing field with the white people who were their enslavers or were not involved in the system, but were benefiting from the system, rather than deal with that like we did 12 years of trying to deal with that, but then we just said, you know what? Forget it. Let's just pretend it never happened. Change the whole story. Say that it was not about slavery at all, that the Civil War was just about states rights or some, like, ephemeral concept. Let the losers of the Civil War put up statues all over the country, all over, particularly the south, but some in the north, too, celebrating themselves as if they were the winners. Rewrite the whole thing and allow the system that oppressed those enslaved people to continue to proliferate into the 20th century, such that you had to have a whole civil rights movement to fix it. Letting go of history did not aid us. It didn't help us. Next year is going to be the 250th birthday of the United States. But the problem is it was a stunted growth because of the erasure of history. I'm not sure we're going to have the Merc, unfortunately. I think something might have happened in terms of him.
- [36:12]
D
I'm not sure. I'm still waiting on him to call out.
- [36:14]
B
We're still waiting for him to come in. We don't know that he's coming through. Unfortunately, he's in Nigeria. So if we don't get the Merc, we will bring him back another time. But it is a fascinating history and it is something for you to think about, because next hour we are going to talk about this Purple Revolution. And I think these two things are related, Right? Because if you don't reckon with what happened, if you could erase a country's history and have children grow up with this stunted, sort of gauzy version of history that covers over all of the bumps and the warts in history, which is what Lindsey Allegan wanted to do, and then they come up and they don't know. And then the. The lack that they face, they can't explain. Right. Because to explain it, they'd have to understand the history that they don't have access to it.
- [37:05]
D
They are now implementing that right now. Prager, you putting that stuff in place, they're trying to implement across, you know, public schools around the country.
- [37:11]
B
Exactly. And it's not just Prageru. So the White House, in preparing for the countries 250th birthday next year, it's the birthday of the Declaration of Independence. They are attempting to rewrite the history of the United States. They have enlisted Hillsdale College, which is a right wing college that is very popular online, operates a lot in Florida. And they do this like faky version of history that covers over all the bad things, makes slaveries the same thing that Prageru does, make slavery seem like, you know, it wasn't so bad. It was really just like the slaves were like family. They were just working a little harder, you know, but at least they had jobs, at least they had food. Like making it seem like you shouldn't even think negatively about the country because most of the founders own. So you shouldn't think negatively. You should think positively about like sort of gauzing over the history. Right. But then you can't explain the lack. You can't explain why the average black family has like 1/100 the net worth of the average white family. It's impossible to explain unless you understand slavery, unless you understand what happened and the brutality and the truth of it.
- [38:23]
D
And then when you wonder why the average person, like, why don't you pull up yourselves by your bootstraps? Because you were never taught about history and other history in this country.
- [38:32]
B
Correct. And so now what you have is this attempt by this administration, the US Administration, to do to the United States what Nigeria did to itself by erasing its history and creating a population that couldn't even explain the divisions that are literally ripping that country apart and harming one of the largest economies on the African continent, making it harder for that economy and that country to prosper. Right. They could prosper more if they actually could reckon with their history. Rwanda had to do that. Like Rwanda had, you know, the Hutu and the Tutsi genociding each other. They had to reckon with it and figure out how to reckon with that in order to move forward. Rwanda has largely done that and they have come back together as a country, but you had to deal with it. South Africa, they needed to deal with the fact that they had the exact same length time of, of slavery, enslavement and their version of Jim Crow that we did. Right. And they had to reckon with it. They haven't really done it fully. They had truth and reconciliation. They didn't fully do it. Okay, now I believe we have the mercury is. And the merc joins me now. Thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate you. You are one of my favorite content creators and substacks. Tell us how it is that Nigeria wound up erasing its history. Please explain.
- [39:51]
D
Well, thank you. Well, it's an interesting situation. First of all, thank you for being a supporter. I know you're one of my first supporters on substack. Yes, I really appreciate that.
- [40:01]
B
Of course.
- [40:02]
D
Well, it's interesting. So late 70s, early 80s, the Nigerian government, it was sort of a gradual thing. So what happened first of all was that history was no longer mandated in schools. And what they did was they introduced a subject called social studies. So I went to school in Nigeria in the early 80s and I did social studies. And it wasn't till recently when the presidents reinstated history, that I realized I never did history. So what social studies was, was a. It's sort of like a civic education because we just had a civil war. So that was 1967 to 1970. And what they wanted to do was to rebuild the nation. And it was more of a psychological, social engineering kind of program where they didn't want people learning about history per se, just the nuts and bolts and facts of it. But they wanted very, very specific ideology to unify the people. Because if you think about it, the more that they learned about the true history of Nigeria, the origin, the colonialism, where we came from, what the tribes were, the kingdoms, it will be very, very difficult to justify the Republic of Nigeria. So that was the reason. And listen, there's disputes as to whether that's, you know, that is the only reason because they gave a bunch of excuses. But that is what I believe is the truth. I mean, they said it was the teachers, there weren't enough teachers to do history. They said that history wasn't a viable subject for employment, that there wasn't enough interest from the students. But I believe it was a political thing, personally.
- [41:39]
B
And the thing is, we were talking about before you come on is that the parallels to what is being done in the United States I think are really kind of mind blowing. Right. Because this idea that if you just don't tell a generation of Nigerians in this case what the history is, then they can be unified. But that if they know, if they know about the civil war, if they're aware of the history, that somehow they won't be able to build one nation, to me seems a bit infantilizing to a people, but it's being done to us now. So tell me, how has that impacted Nigeria? Because it was done there.
- [42:12]
D
Oh, no, it's been extremely bad. I mean, look if you go to the average Nigerian on the streets, they don't know what years the Civil War was fought. They don't know what the two factions were, the reasons for the war. None of those things. In fact, we know more about colonial powers and the British Empire than we do about Nigerian kingdoms and so forth. But the parallels between what Donny T. Is doing in the United States and with the Smithsonian Museum and the executive order, I think it's 14253. The irony is that his statement is he says he's restoring truth and sanity to American history.
- [42:49]
B
Right?
- [42:50]
D
That's what he said. And what truth is the question that you would really ask. And the way that I look at it is that what he's doing and what the government of Nigeria did is actually the same thing. It's really about controlling narratives and controlling the perception of history, because right now, we're making history. So the more that you can control a narrative, the easier it is for you to manipulate a population. So I think when you look at why he wants to take out slavery from. Or slavery. Artifacts and memories of slavery from schools, I mean, from museums, and what Ron DeSantis was doing in Florida when he was trying to take it out of textbooks, it's actually the same principle. You see, the mistake that people make is that they think this is about black children. It's not about black children. It's about white children.
- [43:39]
B
That's right.
- [43:39]
D
You see, the idea is, for them, they're protecting their own children. They don't want. See, nobody's born racist. Nobody's born prejudiced. You're conditioned to be a particular way. They understand that if we expose our kids to the truth, they will be more empathetic to black people. They'll be more empathetic to Africans. We will not be able to just blanket do things ad hoc, you know, so. So it's. It's. It's funny because if you talk to the average white voter who is a Trump supporter, for example, and you tell them, what do you think of Marxism? And they'd be like, oh, you know, Obama was a Marxist. He was this, he was that. And you say, okay, okay, cool. What is Marxism? They can't tell you now, what is it that you're most against?
- [44:23]
B
The elites.
- [44:24]
D
We want to take down the elites. The elites. And you're like, do you know who Karl Marx and Engels were? Do you know what they were talking about? They were categorically talking about a concept that history is a conflict between the elites and the populace.
- [44:38]
B
Right.
- [44:38]
D
The Elites, the bourgeoisie are the people who control production and the proletariat are the people who control labor and they sell labor. Now, if you understand that the whole point about Marxism is that its power to the people, you literally, what you're saying is Marxism. Now obviously, now this is what the, the theory is that obviously if Marxism is successful and the people take power back, it leads to communism. Like that is typically what it would lead to. You're not going to go backwards. So that is where you then demonize the Chinese and so forth and so on. I said but, and I'll say this as a final thing in this section, is that when you look at the last election and you understand what was being fought for and you realize that, listen, you have corporatists, you know, if you're talking about the left, you're talking about decorum, order, taxation, so on and so forth, and you look at the oligarchs, which is what you're really fighting against. The oligarchs typically just want mayhem because if they have mayhem, they can do what I think you've heard of it called rentier. I think it's rentier capitalism. The idea of rentier capitalism is what we all practice in terms of if you own land, it's basically being a toll gatekeeper. You don't produce anything. You charge people for access to what you have. That is how Elon Musk made his money with PayPal. That is how Jeff Bezos made his money with Amazon. That is how Donald Trump made his money with real estate. These people are all the same. Now the scary thing is if you look at what people like Betsy Davos, I think of Amway, the Koch brothers, Bill Gates, I think, or the Waltons of Walmart have been doing, they are very focused on education and history. Just look at, they pumped hundreds of millions of dollars to control education, to privatize, defund the schools, take it out of the public schools, put it into charter schools and private schools. Why are they doing that? It's because they understand it's about narrative control. You need to control how people view things. So if you've read my stuff and all the stuff I do in my platform, it's all context based. It's like I'm just showing you that this is the true history. They never taught you about Africa. And when you look at history, you then understand why we have problems in Africa today. That's it. Now that is what Donniti does not want. The more that people know about black history, the more difficult it is to do the things that you do. I mean, I'm going to tell you a step, but I want you to respond. But there's something I'll explain to you that most black Americans don't know that really changed the. Changes the perspective of how they see these things. But I know I've talked a lot, so I don't want to hog the mic.
- [47:23]
B
No, please finish your thought. These are excellent thoughts and I agree with every one of them.
- [47:28]
D
Okay, so. So this is the thing. When you look at narrative control and you're thinking about what the solutions are, I told people like in my audience, I said I have a particular philosophy that is quite different when it comes to Pan Africanism and the black the bridge to Africa from black America. You see, there's something that black Americans don't realize. They have a spending power of $1.8 trillion a year revolving. That is annual recurring power. Do you know that if black America was a country, it is the 15th most powerful country in the world? Do you know the only countries more powerful than a black America? If we are talking about the United States of black America, America, Britain, China, Russia, Brazil, Japan, Australia, Mexico, South Korea, France and Italy. During that, Saudi Arabia isn't as powerful as black America.
- [48:33]
B
Wow.
- [48:34]
D
Black America. The United States of Black America is more powerful than any country in Africa. All countries in South America, except Mexico and Brazil, all the countries in the Middle east. Except. Except. What am I missing? Actually, nobody. There's nobody in the Middle East. There's no Middle east country as a whole. That's Moji. So when you understand that this is the trick, the trick is getting black America to believe they need to ask for anything. You don't need to ask for anything. You see what Donny T. Did, I view it as a blessing. And that's what I told my audience. I said, this is a wake up call. This is a wake up call to tell you that he never cared about you. America never cared about your history. They've done everything in their power to erase all memory of anything that ever happened to you. While promoting They've got a Holocaust music. Nobody's ever going to talk about defunding that. So my belief is that when you have that kind of power, the trick is making you think you don't.
- [49:36]
B
Right?
- [49:37]
D
You can build your own museum. The museum that Black America could build could be the greatest museum we've ever seen in our lives. It could be the type of museum people fly from all over the world to go and see to commemorate what your ancestors went through for 400, 500 years.
- [49:53]
B
Well, on that note, I am going to bring in, because this is such a powerful conversation, I was like, I can't wait. I'm going to go ahead and bring in Gary Chambers, my good friend and also the creator of Civics for the People. It's an innovative approach to educate and engage citizens on how government impacts their lives. He is a civil rights activist, an entrepreneur, all of the things. Gary Chambers, my friend, thank you so much for being here. And I brought you on because I wanted you to talk about. We're talking about black power with the Merck, and you are on that same page when it comes to your great state of Louisiana, which is it's not. It's an undeveloped right. Black power state. And the city of New Orleans is a place that we've come to think of as a city that is kind of, you know, the demonstration of what black power looks like in New Orleans in the state of Louisiana. But there's an election coming up that could change that. Talk about that for a moment and then weigh in, if you'd like, on what the Merck had to say.
- [50:47]
D
Well, I loved everything he was saying because I think that it illuminates the need for us to collectively work together as a people. New Orleans has a mayor's race this weekend. Tomorrow voting starts. Some of the high points for me are 2017, Joy. The last time that there was a competitive mayor's race in New Orleans, there was a total of 16,000 people that went to vote in that election. 10,000 black folks, 4,000 white folks. This year, 2025, 38,000 people have gone to early vote, 22,000 of them are black, 14,000 of them are white. That is 103% increase in the black community and 188% increase in the white community in New Orleans. And so there's a lot of energy and attention towards this mayor's race. And if black voters show up at the numbers that they need to, they will force a runoff. I am of the belief that a majority black city should have a black mayor. So I'm supporting Oliver Thomas in that race. And I believe that the more black folks that show up to vote tomorrow, the higher the likelihood is of a runoff. And I believe if a runoff election happens, New Orleans will maintain black leaders. And that's important, especially when you look at all of the things that we're dealing with. We have a governor in Jeff Landry who has sent a letter to Trump to bring in to federalize our National Guard. There's an intent to bring the National Guard into New Orleans. We don't need people that are going to be compromising or endearing towards these people. We need people who are going to stand up, have a backbone and resist that level of occupation within our communities.
- [52:20]
B
Can we just put up, Jason, put up the three candidates? Because there are three people in this Democratic primary, right? Let's talk about who they are, because this could be that moment when New Orleans for the first time in a long time has a non black mayor. Talk about these three candidates.
- [52:37]
D
So you have Helena Moreno, who is the current sitting City Council president. She's raised $1.8 million. She is the front runner in the race. 76% of white voters in New Orleans favor Helena Moreno. When you look at the other two candidates, State Senator Royce Du Plessis and City Council member Oliver Thomas, they are competitively in the same range in polling, but about 24, 21% of voters favor either one of them. And 25% of black voters have been undecided. So that says 70% of black voters in Orleans Parish do not want Helena Moreno to be the mayor of New Orleans. But she has amassed a ton of money and has used a lot of influencers and things of that nature to pull a portion of the black vote. But again, if black voters show up at the portion of the population which they are, or exceed that, then you can ensure that there's a runoff. And if there's a runoff, the likelihood of her being able to become the mayor of New Orleans becomes slimmer.
- [53:36]
B
Gary, can you just speak to something that Merck was talking about earlier? We were having this conversation about erasure and he was, you know, he has a really great piece about, about how Niger Nigeria effectively erased its own history in order to create this kind of false unity so the nation could forget about its civil war and move on. Which sounds a lot like what's happened in the United States. I mean, I feel like the state of Louisiana is kind of a laboratory for that kind of sort of, you know, disconnection of a people from its memory to force them to become less powerful than they really could be. Do you feel that that is something that's happened to people in Louisiana? You're always talking about how few people participate. Is that a disconnection in the memory of the power that folks used to or could have?
- [54:18]
D
I think that it is not by accident that the New Orleans school, school system has been all chartered for the last 20 years. I think it's not by accident when you look at the state of affairs in our state education system. You guys talked about the Walton family investing. Ann Walton invested in our state Bessie Board races to influence who got elected into the state Board of Education here in the state of Louisiana. And so those things impact the quality of the education our children get and the history and the knowledge in which they have. But if you even look at Project 2025, the author from Louisiana went to the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, got his dissertation, and studied slavery in Louisiana and Reconstruction in Louisiana. Why? Because some of the most audacious black people in the history of this country were from Louisiana. But if you ask the average black citizen in Louisiana where the first black governor in the country came from, most of them have no idea that it was PBS pinchback here in Louisiana. But that's not by accident. That is intentional, because you do know the names of Huey Long and several other governors from our past. But when you find out that there's been one black person, the whole position in the history of our state, the average Louisianan has no clue that that person served there or the turmoil that removed that person from office and prevented a black person from being elected in a statewide office since 1872.
- [55:42]
B
Let me go back to Merck for just one second, because there is this question that a lot of us have about how do we create unity among the diaspora? To me, you both represent voices engaging black people to engage our own power. How do we get that unity to be diaspora? How do we get Africans and African Americans and Caribbean Americans on the same page? And how do you get Africa on the same page? Can we just get Africa to make a United States of Africa already?
- [56:11]
D
Right? I mean, I. Look, well, that's a. That's a whole different.
- [56:14]
B
Whole different show. You gonna come back now?
- [56:17]
D
But no, I. I think that is my focus. So most of my focus is about unifying, you know, black America and the. And Africa and black Britain as well, because I've spent equal parts of my life in all three. I spent a lot of many, many years in America, so I really became a man there. So I really understand a lot of the struggles, but also the perspectives of things. Because I had a friend, I was talking to him once, many years ago, and I was complaining about, oh, you know, why don't you guys do this? What are you going. And he said, you know what? You know what it's like to be free? I don't know. My history ends with slavery. Like, that is the. The end of the line. You actually can go back and you can. And I never thought of it that way. So he just gave me a new perspective. And I, I, it's changed the way that I have the conversation. So now when I talk to people, I say, look, this is really an educational problem. When you don't control your narrative and you're forced to pin your history to something that is dictated to you by the oppressor, it's always going to be difficult for you to connect with the people that are on the other side. And it's just basic wedge politics. It's like I'm going to import, for example, the best Nigerians into the United States, offer them these opportunities, and then utilize them to drive a wedge between black Americans and their upper class. It's the same thing they did in South Africa with collards and blacks. They created the colored delineation, which Tyler fell into that trap. They created that to separate the white ruling class from blacks at the bottom of the barrel. So the way that I view it is quite simple. You need to not be afraid of power, because power is scary, especially when you've never held it. When you start looking at history and the number of times black America has stood up, Tulsa, Greenwood, Lake Lanier, the list goes on. And how many times that those places were burned, destroyed, sabotaged. I think the only place that has ever been bombed by the US government is actually a black neighborhood. I think that's the first and only time that's happened. It was in Chicago.
- [58:26]
B
Oh no, it was a move. It was the move, right? Yeah.
- [58:30]
D
That's the only time it's ever happened.
- [58:31]
B
Yeah.
- [58:32]
D
So I think that has created a certain level of PTSD that makes it very difficult so subconsciously for a lot of black Americans to realize that, hey, you know what, at the end of the day, at this point, your history doesn't end with what is in the Smithsonian Museum. Because if it does and if you embrace that ending. When I say ending, I'm talking about just the genesis of your, of your lineage. It is very difficult to have the kind of power necessary to make certain decisions. You see, for me it is automatic because I know my history, it's just automatic. So no matter what any racist cop says to me, and I've had many run ins, you know, when I was in America, no matter what anybody says to me, it's very difficult to break me down psychologically because I know so much about my history. I think that the only way that we can unify is first of all, mutual respect. So for the immigrants like myself, is a respect for what black America has actually gone through.
- [59:31]
B
Amen.
- [59:32]
D
A respect and understanding for the impact that has had generationally on the psyche of the black American. And then an appreciation of the ground that black America made to allow immigrants to even be in America and benefit from the things that they fought for. That's important. On the flip side, and this is actually way more difficult. Black America have been starved of truth of what Africa actually is and what it has for them. You have to understand that if it is promoted, that we are a cesspool of corruption, hatred, and war. Why are white people so obsessed with being in Africa? Why is it that when we beg them to leave, they will not leave? You know what I'm saying? Like, it doesn't make any sense. Like, if we're so bad, why are you still here? They're begging to stay. So that is the trick. And I keep telling people in my audience, I say, listen, I know what they know what they're doing. They know it's a sinking ship in the west. And they're trying to establish themselves in my home hometown. This is your birthright that they're trying to take. They stole you and took you over there to build that empire. That empire is now crumbling, and they want to come back here to take what your. It's yours.
- [60:49]
B
Yeah.
- [60:50]
D
So I think that is my view, that it's really a case of controlling history, controlling your narrative and your education. If you can't do that, it is impossible because you're being trained to essentially be food for the oligarchs. And as long as you're in that position, it's going to be very difficult.
- [61:07]
B
Very difficult. I'm going to give Gary Chambers the last word, my friend, because I know it's really important that people really connect with the pragmatic thing that we can do to get whatever's left of this declining empire to work in our favor. Talk about what people need to do in the state of Louisiana tomorrow.
- [61:27]
D
Well, you know, if you are in New Orleans, you need to show up and vote. There is a mayor's race. There's city council races. One other data point I wanted to give joy is that when there was a city, there's a citywide race for city council, and there are two black candidates in that race. 60% of white voters do not not know who they want to support when the candidates are black. But 76% of white voters know who they want to support when there's a white candidate involved. So what we as black folks need to understand is the data is Clear. White people have no problem supporting, voting for, funding and getting behind their people. We should have the same position to support, vote for and get behind our people. Election day is tomorrow, New Orleans.
- [62:08]
B
Do your part and tell us who you're supporting. Jason, can you put back up the three people? You have a dog in this, in this race that you think is the best choice. Tell us who and why.
- [62:18]
D
I am supporting Oliver Thomas in this race. He is a current city council member who represents New Orleans East. He was previously on the city council 14 years ago. I believe that Oliver has the most realistic plan. He's got the backbone for the job. He wants to build 10,000 affordable new houses, do provisional permits for small businesses, make sure that citizens in New Orleans get two day a week trash pickup because, because they're getting one day a week while they're paying for two days a week. He wants city services to work for people and he wants the government to wrap around the young people of New Orleans so that the culture and the vitality of New Orleans remains within the hands of the people that made that culture what it is, which is black folks in New Orleans.
- [62:58]
B
Gary Chambers Jr Jr we gonna make sure that your dad gets his, gets his due. Yeah, we try to. Gotta remember that he is there. So. Gary Chambers Jr. Thank you very much. The Merck. I appreciate you saying so much you guys. We've done, we've done statewide, we've done local and we've done international. On this show on tonight, it is Al Kbulan. I'm going to pronounce it, I'm going to spell it for you guys so you can figure out how to get it on Substack. A L K E B U L A N. I'm going to put it in the show description below so you guys can find it. You also need to check out the Crusaders, which is amazing. It is a really, really, really great graphic novel. You've listen, you can get entertained while you learn. So we want you guys to support that too. Thank you. There you. There it is, y'. All. There it is. Support all of these incredible, incredible. These two brothers are doing the thing. Thank you both very much. Gary Chambers Jr. And the Merc. Thank you guys very much.
- [63:49]
D
Thank you.
- [63:50]
B
Thank you very much you guys. So there it is. You guys have your marching orders. If you're in the city of New Orleans, please vote tomorrow. Hopefully you're already registered. It is too late to register. You got to register if you registered. You need to vote tomorrow. Don't let the, don't let New Orleans slip away. All right, welcome to hour two of the Joy Reid Show. If you have not hit like and subscribe as yet, now is your chance. I want to jump in right now and talk about what's going on with this shutdown. Mike Johnson was on C Span the other day. I'm not even going to play it right now. I'll play it a little bit later when we, when we get a chance to get our congresswoman in. Congressman Yvette Clark of Brooklyn is here to give us an update on what's going on with the shutdown. Oh, maybe she's not there yet. Okay, good. We can play Mike Johnson. Can we play Mike Johnson? Let's play Mike Johnson. This is Mike Johnson on C Span the other day when he actually got asked by a Republican what in the hell is going on with this shutdown, because she herself was being impacted. You ready for that, Jason? Get ready. Let me know when you're ready. Then you're ready on the Republican line, Fort Belvedere, Virginia. Samantha, you're on with Speaker Johnson. Hi, Mr. Johnson. So my question or comments are related to what you said yesterday about not being open to pass any legislation to ensure that military gets paid. I'm sure you can tell by my voice I'm very shaky. Just want you to hear a little bit about my family. I have two medically fragile children. I have a husband who actively serves this country. He suffers from PTSD from his two chores in Afghanistan. If we see a lapse in payment come the 15th, my children do not get to get the medication that's needed for them to live their life because we live paycheck to paycheck. I heard you earlier say that you side with President Trump on anything that he says. Well, I just read an article this morning that said he absolutely, wholeheartedly believes that there needs to be legislation put in so that we do not miss a paycheck. You have the power to. To do that. As a Republican, I'm very disappointed in my party and I'm very disappointed in you because you do have the power to call the House back. You did that or you refused to do that just for a show? I am begging you to pass this legislation. My kids could die. We don't have the credit because of the medical bills that I have to pay regularly. You could stop this and you could be the one that could say, military, military is getting paid. And I think that it is awful. And the audacity of someone who makes six figures a year to do this to military families. Is insane. Maybe she shouldn't have voted for Donald Trump. But, you know, I feel your pain. We are hearing stories about military folks having to stand in lines to get, you know, food assistance. You know, their pay runs out on the 15th. By the way, today's the 10th. Five days from now, military families may not get their paychecks. Let me play one more piece of sound. This is, and I hate having to play her so often. This is Marjorie Taylor Greene. She's getting interviewed. And this is proof that Republicans are losing the sort of messaging war on the shutdown because they're trying to pretend it's Democrats. When they control the entire government. There is nothing Democrats can do to reopen the government. It is Republicans who control the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court and the White House. Here's Marjorie Taylor Greene saying basically that. And yeah, stop trying to pretend it's the Democrats. It's our, it's us. Well, I don't think it's good advice that a government shutdown is going to help Republicans in the midterms. I don't agree with that. I also don't think it's good advice that Republicans ignoring the health insurance crisis is going to be good for midterms. I actually think that would be very bad for midterms. And I think that just not staying focused on America for first policies is detrimental as well.
- [67:39]
C
Yeah.
- [67:40]
B
And on that note, are you concerned about the cost of living that the President Trump said he would lower? The inflation crushed people in the past four and a half years and the costs have not come down. I myself can tell you, my apartment here in Washington, D.C. the electricity bill is $100 more than it was last year because you can look at your own bill and look at cost. Prices have not come down. That is a reality. People's wages have not gone up. That's another reality. And so Americans are continuing to have a very difficult time getting by. And I'll go a step further. I'm a mom. And so when it comes to what is affecting my adult children's lives who are 22, 26 and 28, I'm going to be 1000% fighting for them over any politician in any party. And I can tell you right now, that generation, they are barely making it and they're very hopeless for their future becoming the voice of reason on the Republican side. By the way, those in the chat who were saying they wanted to hear what Mike Johnson's response was to that lady, he sat there, sort of looked deer in the headlights and then he turned around and gave like 30 seconds of saying it's Democrats fault and that if the Democrats are the ones who are keeping the government shut down. That is what he said. He said, no, this is, I feel for you. I have, I have so much empathy for you, but it's the Democrats fault. That's what he said. Joining me now is Congresswoman Yvette Clark of Brooklyn, New York. She also happens to be the chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, the cbc, which is fighting on the. No health care Nova. No, she's not in the chair. Oh, every time we go to. It's just a chair full of, of no person. We're waiting for it to get on. We're waiting for the congressman to get on. But yes, that is what he said. It's like another like 30 seconds of him saying, I feel for you, ma', am, but it's really the Democrats fault. Martha Taylor Greene at least admitting it is her own party and that it is not a good idea and not good messaging to say it ain't us because you're in charge. If you're in charge, you're supposed to be like, the buck stops with us. Donald Trump, by the way, in addition to all that he's doing, is now making it clear that what he and Russ Vote are going to do is start firing people. They're saying they're not going to pay people who are on furlough their back pay. And then he says that he and Russ Vote are now going to go on a firing spree. And he says they're also going to start canceling, quote, unquote, Democrat programs. He says they're going to cancel programs that Democrats like and that Republicans don't like. What programs are those? Head Start, Meals on Wheels, food stamps. What are you going to cut? Donald Trump, he's basically now saying that they're going to use this shutdown as an opportunity to start slashing weight at programs that they can't get Congress to vote down. So I'm here. I think I'm about to get an, an info. Do we have the, do we have the congresswoman? No, no, Congresswoman. Okay. We're still waiting for the congresswoman. Excuse me. Oh, wait, I'm. Somebody's talking in my ear. The congresswoman, is she. Okay, so let me know when she is on camera and then we will go back to her. As soon as she's sitting in front of the camera, just let us know. Because the issue that we have right now is that you have a president who is saying this is Our shutdown. Who is saying we're in charge and we're going to use this shutdown to do what we want to do policy wise that we can't get Congress to vote on. He's saying that you have Russ vote bragging that that's exactly what they're going to do, that they're not just going to furlough people, they're going to lay them off, they're going to fire people and they're going to cancel programs. That is what the White House is saying. Then you have the speaker of the House saying, no, it's Democrats who are doing this. It's Democrats fault. Then you have the Department of Homeland Security literally putting propaganda videos in the airports saying, no, it's the Democrats. Which is it? You guys are either in charge and have all the power and you have absolute power or you don't. Because the Democrats are the minority party. They don't control anything. I do believe maybe we have the congressman. Let's try again. Let's see if it's a chair or if it's a congressman. We're going to do chair or rep for playing the game of chair or rep. Let's bring it here.
- [71:34]
D
But she's in the wrong studio. So let me just bring her to the right studio.
- [71:37]
B
So just hang out because team. Okay. All right. We're gonna, we're gonna bring in the right seat. Okay. She's, we're having some. We have to move the boxes. We have to move the boxes around. So the bottom line is if you are the party in 100% control of the United States government, n the Republican Party, you control the House, you control the Senate. You actually have 219 votes in the House. So by yourself you can get 218 votes to pass anything you want. In fact, the Republican Party earlier this year passed a continuing resolution without the Democrats voting for it at all. Not one Democrat voted for it and it still passed because they have 219 votes. You need 218 votes to pass anything. So clearly they're having a problem with their own caucus. If they can't pass a budget, it's not the Democrats fault, it's the Republicans fault. And so Mike Johnson is claiming that the bill they passed, the continuing resolution that they passed earlier in the year, they're not going to vote on it again. In fact, they have turned down the opportunity to, to vote for an additional mini bill that would pay members of the military and make sure they get their checks. He said they will not put that on the floor. They've turned down the opportunity to put a mini bill on the floor that would pay air traffic controllers and other essential employees and guarantee they get checks. He said, we're not doing that. So Mike Johnson could, anytime he wanted, either pass, put the mini bills on the floor that would pay the members of the military, pay the TSA workers. He could do that. He's just refusing to do it. And he's saying because he does not want to change the cr. They call it a cr, the continuing resolution that they passed earlier. He wants that CR to stand and he wants the Senate to pass it, to pass their version of it with the same language. The problem is Republicans in the Senate under John Th cannot pass that bill because they don't have a unified caucus that is willing to pass it. And they can't get 60 votes because Democrats are like, this ain't our problem. You control the government. You figure it out. So they're not willing to do that on their own. That is not the guess that we're trying to get. We're trying to get a different guess. We're going to go ahead and wait for the congresswoman. We have Khalil Green. Hey. Saying hi to Khalil Green. He is the next guest after the congresswoman, but we're trying to get the congresswoman in. So we're going to wait for her and we'll bring Khalil back. We'll bring him back. He's our surprise guest. The surprise has now been blown. This was our surprise guest that we're bringing on a little bit later in the show. But we're waiting first to get the congresswoman. Everybody. Somebody let me know when she is seated because we want to talk about this shutdown and figure out what's going on. We don't have her. Not yet.
- [74:04]
D
She's still in the other studio. The producer sending her the link again.
- [74:07]
B
Oh, okay. Well, you know what, then in that case, go ahead and bring Khalil Green in and give him some applause. This is one of actually my absolute favorite content creators. I just came upon this young man on Instagram. He is a Peabody Award winning content creator. I believe he's been nominated for Emmys not once but twice. Khalil Green, welcome to the show.
- [74:32]
A
Thank you for having me. I'm very happy to do this spontaneously. So.
- [74:36]
B
Absolutely. Well, look, you were early. So look, the early bird gets the worm. So you are the early birds. You're going to. You're going to super supersede the member of Congress in this moment. I want to ask you about, you've been watching and you do such a great job of not just educating people, but paying attention and watching what's going on on social media. What is the conversation like about the shutdown? Who's being blamed? Who is winning this messaging war?
- [75:00]
A
Well, I mean, in my opinion, I think, I think people are always going to be on the sides of like the aisle that they're, that they're on. Right. I think there's issue of echo chambers online. So I can only speak for the echo chamber that I've seen. But I mean, a lot of people are blaming Speaker Johnson and they're actually very happy to see the Democrats fighting back. I think people have felt that they haven't put their best foot forward. They haven't been able to take risks and actually stand up to the Republicans across the various issues and the various overreaches that we've seen. So, I mean, I'd say that I've seen a lot of support from the Democrats from my side and what I'm seeing on my algorithm.
- [75:38]
B
What about, you know, Marjorie Taylor Greene made the point that, you know, her children who are in their twenties are really struggling because, you know, prices being high, you know, really suffering. And so the, some of the same people who were like Trump voters because they thought that the Biden economy was unaffordable are now things are even more unaffordable. That's what her reporting is. Is that what you're seeing in just your circle of friends?
- [75:59]
A
Yeah, I mean, and I think it circles back to a lot of what we're seeing recently, which is this, this sort of solidarity might be the right word. I'm not sure if I want to go that far, but perhaps solidarity between people even on the right who are like a part of the populace and people on the left who are just standing up and saying that. Even though, let's say there's a lot of like MAGA right wing people who voted in Trump, they're coming to their senses and they're coming to the realization that all the promises that were made are not necessarily the promises being kept. And it's, I mean, I want to say hopeful, seeing people finally standing up and hopefully over time there'll be a lot more solidarity and unification amongst the masses and realizing that these rich populists are not people with the best interests in mind of even people who voted for them.
- [76:49]
B
Well, this, you bring me to exactly the point that I actually really want to talk to you about today. And it is this purple revolution thing. So I. Last week, we did a private members only chat, and some folks in there were asking me, what did I think of the Purple Revolution. I was like, I didn't know what that was, and I couldn't look it up in that moment. But I have now since figured out what it is. And what it is is this online kind of movement of red and blue to come together because both red and blue are being hurt by the Trump economy. And people who voted for Trump saying they regret their vote. Now they want to come together and form a purple revolution. So my thoughts on this, Khalil, is that it's giving. Forgive the Confederacy, right? People who decided they were willing to fight and die to keep slavery, even if they didn't themselves have slaves. The idea of having a tiered system that was racialized, that black people were always below them, and they were willing to literally fight and die to keep the slave system alive in the south, they committed literal treason. They shot at Union soldiers, they waged war against the United States. And yet after the Civil War, there was this really. There was 12 years, we got Reconstruction. And then after that, you know, even most white Republicans who were on our side theoretically said, you know what? F them blacks, we gonna forgive these white people who'd committed slavery. We're gonna forgive these Confederates, let them back into society. They can run for office again. They can get pensions, all of it. They get all of their. They get to restore their honor. And not only that, we're gonna let them put up statues to their heroes, even though they were the losing side all over the south in the 1950s, in order to convince people that they are the winners and that they were the moral, they had the moral high ground. Like this idea of just letting people come on back in. You punched me in the face. But it's like, hey, now we're even. It doesn't feel right to a lot of people. And I wonder if you're starting to see some backlash to people saying, like, historically, this, this. This tracks with the way we went wrong the first time to just forgive and forget. What do you think?
- [78:43]
A
Yeah, I think it all depends on what concessions are being made within the forgiveness. Right. Like, if we're letting people sort of join the movement, movement who still hold and harbor a lot of the racist, xenophobic ideas that got Trump elected, but are only wanting to join in with the Democrats or people on the left because they're now being hurt and they now realize that, then I think that we're going to have a lot of issues over time, I think the process of. Of healing and reconciliation, working together to stop the authoritarianism and the, the lack of respect for citizens and the rule of law has to come with people also taking a look inward and realizing that they have to weed out their own biases, their own prejudices, and their own sources of hate. That got us to where we are today. Because I would argue, I mean, there's so many people who did analyses of why Kamala lost the election, how Trump won, but a large part of it is the hate mongering is the fear mongering. And unless that's solved, we can't work together. And I think that's the only way to move forward.
- [79:44]
B
Forward. Can you talk about how it is that Trump managed to weaponize and demonize immigrants so thoroughly that people were willing to even vote, in theory, to deport their own family members? Right. That people got so drunk on the, you know, hate Jews against, against immigrants, against undocumented people and using this term illegals, which to me just means you want to say the N word. It's like the N word for brown people. And so they. And people are so drunk on it that even brown people were like, deport them. And then it turned out it was their family member, it was their father, their mother, their spouse. And they're shocked to find out that, you know, that in the US And US and them, they're them. How can you talk about how algorithmically that kind of disinformation permeated communities?
- [80:32]
A
Yeah. I think a perfect example is the content creator named Theo Vaughn. For anyone who doesn't know, Theo Vaughn is a commentator. Interviewer probably is a better word. He's had many politicians on his show, people ranging from Bernie Sanders all the way up to JD Vance as well as President Trump. And right before the election, I believe he endorsed, if not directly, definitely, implicitly endorsed Donald Trump because he was convinced by what Trump had to say. And then very recently on Twitter or X ice, it's still Twitter.
- [81:04]
B
It's still Twitter. We calling it X Twitter in my head as well.
- [81:07]
A
On Twitter, the official ICE account used Theo Vaughn in a video making in front of deportations. And this podcaster who was a part of getting Trump elected had to go on to his platform saying that he wasn't okay with this. He talked about his family members having been immigrants and saying that this is not what he voted for. And that is what you will hear over and over again from people who are having this sort of wake up realization after Trump was elected, saying that this is not what they voted for. But they wouldn't have to wake up now if they were woke before the election. But as we know, people started to demonize the idea of being woke. They started to be super anti intellectual and say that they don't need to read books. They didn't want to listen. People were saying that immigrants are being scapegoated. We brought up the historical pattern of immigrants being demonized, whether it was the Irish, the Italians, the Chinese, of the Chinese Exclusion act, the Mexicans, whoever it was. We talked about this being a repeating pattern within the United States, that these people were demonized, that leaders were elected who were, who promised to get them removed from the country, and then drastic action was taken. They did not want to listen. And now they're finally coming to the realization. And I think it's something that ideally would have happened before, but on social media, you see it all over. You're seeing all the conservatives or these people who are quote, unquote, moderates that endorse Trump finally waking up and realizing when it's something they should have done earlier.
- [82:29]
B
Yeah, I mean, these people are like, oh, please, let me come back to Thanksgiving. But they're only upset because Donald Trump took the food off their table. They didn't mind if they took the food off of our tables. Can I just play this, Jason? This is E2. This is the reason that I cannot get with the Purple Revolution. And when I see videos like this, I think if you voted for this and this is what you wanted, I'm really not sure that we can unify. And by the way, this is a mom is going to pick up her kids at school. This is the school pickup line in a city in Illinois, in a Chicago suburb in Illinois. Okay, so that is what's happening, right? I mean, when you see things like that, and these are various feds now, they're just men in normal clothes in some cases. I was just watching a video yesterday of what really looked like a kidnapping in front of an attorney. They're dragging people out of hospitals, out of. I mean, this is insane. And I just wonder if just you tend, you pay a lot of attention to what's happening online and you know, whether these images are impacting people to change their views about immigration or are people treating it as entertainment.
- [84:16]
A
Yeah, I mean, I like to think people are changing their opinions. There was one really harrowing video, I don't know which state it was, and I want to say it was New York, of a woman being tackled by an officer, an ICE agent, And that I believe resulted in the, in the agent being suspended or other, some other way reprimanded who. And that went viral on social media. And I mean, for anyone who doesn't know, just to give a quick introduction, a lot of my work is educational work. So I try to bring in history lessons on social media to inform largely young people about patterns in American history that have created the injustice that we see today. So I like to look at it ideally with a glass half full sort of mindset and seeing that there are people who voted for Trump, I can assume malice, which a lot of them did have. We saw those deport them now flags all throughout his campaign. But I would like to assume ignorance where I can and assume that with more realization of what they voted for as well as education and a path forward, some call to actions that they could take, that people can change their minds and work against what Trump is doing with the understanding now that what they voted for was a monster in office who's really skirting all constitutional sort of guardrails and reveling in the pain and suffering of so many people, of families, of people who are hard working and having no course of change and no will to repent in any sort of way.
- [85:40]
B
Yeah, and the reason that I really love what you do and the content you do is just what you just said is that you are educating your peer group, right, Your ed, you're, you know, educating young people as to history they may not be getting in school. Which brings me to Turning Point usa because their whole point is in their mind to do the same thing, to go onto these college campuses and to try to compel people your age and younger to become conservative. What do you make of the fact that what's hidden behind that are billionaires, it isn't young people like you, it's not you, you know, that you just set out and put your, you know, yourself out there to do that. It is literally a billionaire funded effort to try to indoctrinate young people. What do you make of the reaction to the co founder because it was founded by a multi, multi, multi millionaire, but who used Charlie Kirk as the avatar. What do you make of the aftermath of that? I mean, Florida colleges saying you have to name streets after Charlie Kirk, even HBCUs, the sort of, you know, turning every Democratic organization leading organization into antifa. What do you make of all that?
- [86:43]
A
Yeah, well, I'll just give the, the counterfactual, right. Like there is a world where even if it's conservative, there was an organization that Funded education and conversations where people were sitting down and they were explaining limited government or capitalism or other principles of conservatism that people might not understand and educating them. That's not what Turning Point did. That's not what Charlie Kirk's legacy is. What they were doing was going on college campuses, number one, building a cult of personality around Charlie Kirk. Which is why we're seeing the sorts of very strange outpourings of affection and idolization honestly of Charlie Kirk after building the cult of personality around him. Also once again stirring the vision, hate mongering, playing to the algorithm and how algorithms on social media love content that cause strong emotional reactions in order to gain a large audience. And a lot of what we're seeing is like people describing what Charlie Kirk did or at least the viral clips of what Charlie Kirk did as debate when they're not debate in any sense of the word that could be deemed productive.
- [87:48]
B
Right.
- [87:48]
A
Like these are not the exchanges of ideas on a fair ground, but they were our clips and snippets of public humiliation of people coming in to sometimes try to even have a very fair conversation with Charlie Kirk about an issue. And Kirk using ways very, I guess I will say he's talented in his gift to, to spin things into lie with statistics and to use debate tactics in order to make people feel dumber or lesser than. As opposed to trying to convince them or convince anyone around them of, of policy or ideas based on educational merit. I think that's the core issue here, is that nowadays, and we're seeing this with some of the clips from people even going to Vivek Ramaswamy's debates and some of the Charlie Kirk, some of the Charlie Kirk fanatics just going at Vivek Ramaswamy saying that because he's not Christian, he should not be running in America, that he's a Hindu with multiple gods and there's no way for him in any way to ever rule or ever govern a part of America. And this is the legacy of Charlie Kirk. People coming in being hyper combative, saying out very bigoted talking points and not being there to engage and to learn and have educational discussion, but saying that it was educational or a debate to be a disguise for the truly hateful combative rhetoric that we're seeing at these events.
- [89:08]
B
Yeah, it's a 31 year old yelling at 18 year old freshmen and throwing out factoids that he does not have to support because a, you know, a very aggressive 31 year old screaming at a college freshman and saying these are facts. How are they supposed to know in that moment, you know, and he's just trying to make them feel dumb. But I mean, I guess that is the virtue on the right. What do you make of the fact that Turning Point USA is now Saul's leader of. They're going to have their own. They're mad about the Bad Bunny bowl, which I actually think this is hilarious. So they've decided that they're mad that this global entertainment phenomenon, Bad Bunny, is going to be the super bowl halftime show. So they're gonna have their own super bowl halftime show. Okay, first of all, which is hilarious. I don't know who's gonna star in it. But in the detail of their post, they list what kinds of music this is E4 Jason, if you have it, where they're like, what kind of music. They're trying to let people vote on what kind of music. They include hip hop. Among. Among their. Their. The list of music, country music, Americana. They. They threw hip, classic rock, country, hip hop, pop. Who do you think they would get for hip hop? I mean, like Drake.
- [90:20]
A
Well, yeah, actually.
- [90:22]
B
I mean, Kanye West.
- [90:24]
A
There's a lot of. There's a lot of rappers who are maga, or at least MAGA adjacent at some of the events. Soulja Boy has performed a relationship with Donald Trump.
- [90:35]
B
Yeah.
- [90:35]
A
And I think what they're trying to capitalize off of is a lot of uninformed people within the black community. A lot of rappers, a lot of superstars are either ignorant of politics or they do lean conservative. Maybe that's what they were getting at. But I think the really interesting thing is that one of the genres they had was the genre of anything in English which shows the real.
- [90:55]
B
Oh no, they said anything American. And it's like, dude, he's American. He's from Puerto Rico. Do they not know Puerto Rico's in the US it is an American territory. Okay, my exit question to you, my. My. My friend. And it's so great to have you on and finally get to meet you virtually the Blexit Tour. These right wingers who want to continue the legacy of 30 some year olds screaming at teenagers on college campuses. The blexit folks are coming to college campuses. What is your advice to any students on college campuses who are going to experience these random black conservative people who they probably don't know who they are who are coming to their campuses for homecoming weekend?
- [91:36]
A
I would say just know what they're doing. Right. There's someone on there. Savannah Craven. She was made famous for going to New York City and baiting someone on a debate about abortion, that person did end up physically attacking her. And now she's in a long lost to where she's constantly trying to make herself seem like someone who's an innocent bystander who did not provoke this in any way. But we know that everyone in this panel is going to these college campuses to provoke some sort of argument or fight or conflict. So if you're in that situation, the best thing to do, of course, is to avoid them. But I will say, if you do go up there, just know that they're going to try to make you feel stupid. So unless you're bringing in all the facts and you are very capable of debate and you know all of the debate tactics they might use, it might not be the best to engage with them in that scenario. But if you go up there, do make them look stupid because they're going to try to make you look stupid.
- [92:33]
B
Yeah, Ignoring them will probably make them feel the worst. So maybe just ignore them, everybody. Absolutely. Just pretend they're not there. I mean, they'll be used to that from being at MAGA events. Khalil Green, do follow Khalil on Instagram TikTok. Make sure that people know how to follow you. What is the. What is the best place to find you, Khalil?
- [92:52]
A
Yeah, the best place to find me is my newsletter, History Can't Hide. If you type in history can't hide.com or historycanthide.substack.com you'll find my newsletter where I talk about Gen Z history and politics and hopefully learn something new.
- [93:06]
B
We love it. Khalil Green. Jason, can we get some applause for Khalil Green? He is one of the best.
- [93:10]
A
Thank you so much.
- [93:11]
B
We appreciate you, young man. Thank you very much. All right, nephew, new nephew in the House. Thank you very much. We appreciate you. All right, there he is, Khalil Green. He's a good one. You all should definitely follow him. He is one of the smarties.
- [93:22]
D
Guest in now.
- [93:23]
B
All right, let's go. Let's bring in the congresswoman. I do believe we have Congresswoman Eyvette Clark. Aha. We have found her in her fabulous glasses. Thank you so much for being here, Congresswoman. I know we had a little bit of a wrong studio moment. We kept going to the chair being like, where's the congresswoman? We have tracked you down. Let's talk about this shutdown Republicans, the Department of Homeland Security. Let me start there. They are apparently now playing a propaganda video of Kristi Noem I don't know if her face falls off in the video or not. I cannot verify. Blames your party, blames Democrats for the shutdown, and they're doing that with official tax dollars. Is that legal and will there be hearings about it?
- [94:06]
C
Well, we have gotten several reports from different agencies about just propaganda being put up on their website about the cause of the shutdown. Various agencies are receiving. When people call in, they're getting messages that are blatant violations of the Hatch Act. And so indeed, our oversight committee, well, our ranking member, has penned a letter to the agencies and to the administration to let them know that they are in violation. It's, it's. It may even get into a litigative stage because that is a blatant, blatant violation of the Hatch Act. For any federal employee to bring politics into governance is just, you know, it's, it's horrible.
- [95:09]
B
It's not North Korea.
- [95:11]
C
Exactly. And fortunately, now, you know, this is.
- [95:15]
D
Another.
- [95:17]
C
Another instance of this administration essentially plotting the law.
- [95:23]
B
Let's talk about the Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, who is blaming Democrats even though he has control of the United States House of Representatives. Has there been any movement in trying to force him, maybe through discharge petition, to put on the floor these bills that we've heard about to pay the military, to pay air traffic controllers. Is there a possibility that that could happen? Are there enough Republicans who might want to do that?
- [95:52]
C
Well, unfortunately, we'd have to be in session for that to happen. And right now he continues to keep the House in recess. And so we have a pro forma session. So we're in recess, but the session is not over. So in order to keep the session going, we do something called a pro forma, where a member of the majority party will gavel in just to say that we're in session and then leave. What we've tried to do in each instance is show up. And Democrats have been coming to work for the past two weeks trying to move things and get his attention so that we can enter into any business in the House of Representatives. At this stage, we've been unsuccessful in doing so.
- [96:47]
B
And is he keeping the House out of session because he does not want to swear in Adelita Grijava, who would be the 218th vote to release the Epstein files? Isn't that what this is about?
- [96:57]
C
Well, we believe that that's part of it. That's a big part of it. Swearing her in would mean that we would have the 218th vote to release the Epstein files. But beyond That I think that they believe that they have a winning strategy, but with keeping members out of session until the Senate votes to advance the cr. And he says that the House has done its work in voting out the cr. It's now time for the Senate. And until the Senate does their job, we're not going to be in session. It's just unbelievable, the level of childishness, the lack of bipartisanship. The Congress is really teetering on being broken at this stage, but we have to continue to battle this out.
- [97:56]
B
If the United States Senate were to simply pass the CR that the House passed, what would that do to the premium supports for people who have Obamacare?
- [98:08]
C
Well, at the end of the day, we don't believe that these folks will come back and take up the measure. Right now, people across this nation are receiving notices from their health insurance companies, from various entities of health care within their communities, letting them know that their premiums are going up. Some companies have not even waited, but have already projected what the cost will be to each individual. People are freaking out all across this country because they're receiving these notices. And you would think that in light of that, the Republicans would do their jobs, would do what needs to be done, include in this continuing resolution, which is a budget measure. I want people to understand there's a lot of jargon here. There's cr, which means continuing resolution, which impacts the. Which is an impact of the budget. And we could take care of abating what would be a catastrophic circumstance for people in terms of the cost of their health insurance. And he's unwilling to do that.
- [99:19]
B
He's unwilling to do. And just to make it clear for the audience and for those in the chat who are asking these questions, the reality is that the supports that people get for Obamacare, that come from the federal government, that make your premiums affordable. Affordable. Those expire at the end of the year, December 31st. However, the period when you're supposed to re up, you know, like when you're at work and they send those packets around or you have to re. Sign up for your insurance, that's in November. So next.
- [99:45]
C
That's right.
- [99:47]
B
Go ahead.
- [99:47]
C
That. That's the enrollment period.
- [99:49]
B
Yes.
- [99:49]
C
It begins on November 1st.
- [99:54]
B
And so that means. Please go ahead. Yeah, continue.
- [99:58]
D
Yeah.
- [99:58]
C
What I was going to say is that people then have to make informed decision about what type of plans they can afford and what they need to provide for themselves and their families. For small businesses, that. That's a big decision for, you know, mom and pops who may own their own businesses and have and get their health care through the health exchange and their employees. Oftentimes this will be. It will have a ripple effect throughout society, throughout every community, at every level. Farmers who use the Affordable Care act in order to have access to health care. You can go across the board. These folks know that what they are, you know, they're barreling towards catastrophe and we're trying to save them and save the American people. They don't want to be saved.
- [100:48]
B
Let me ask you an exit question before I let you go, Congresswoman, to comment on the indictment of Latif Keisha James. You are from Brooklyn, so I know that you probably have thoughts about it. This feels very strictly political. And she's being targeted by Pamela Joe's outfit at the doj. Your thoughts on this? Yeah.
- [101:08]
C
This is what dictators do, you know, this is what wannabe dictators do. I want to make sure that the American people understand that Donald Trump is now moved across the red line into authoritarianism. Now, that's a multiple syllable word, but essentially that means he wants to be king, he wants to be dictator, and that he will disregard the rule of law. He had a US Attorney who informed him, part of the Department of Justice, that there was no crime committed, yet he dismissed this gentleman. The gentleman resigned, one of the two, and now he put one of his sycophants in there who is going to do everything he wants her to do. And that person has now brought charges against the Attorney General. This is what retribution looks like. This is what not wanting to be held accountable looks like. Letitia James, the Attorney General for the State of New York, did her job for all New Yorkers and beyond that, for the rest of the nation. This man had been, he had been scheming, he had been stealing, he had been doing everything he could to manipulate the insurance costs and the real estate taxes that he paid here in the state of New York. And he was busted. You know, put on your big man pants and, you know, and admit to wrongdoing.
- [102:49]
B
That's right. And pay your fine. And pay your fine. Amen. And pay your fine. Congresswoman Yvette Clark, really appreciate you being here. Thank you so much. Keep fighting the good fight. You're welcome back here anytime.
- [103:01]
C
Wonderful to be on your show, Joy. And next time, I'm going to make sure I'm in studio and ready to roll. Thank you so much for what you're doing for our communities.
- [103:10]
B
Of course. Of course. You are here anytime. Right studio, wrong studio. We're gonna get you on good says thank you very Much. We appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the convers. I want to note that the thing that, that Leticia James is being accused of is they're trying to say that she committed mortgage fraud because she owned a home in New York. She bought a home. And she said this on our show. Remember, she was on, we did a special episode with Letitia James, with Attorney General T.J. james. She talked about the fact that, you know, for a family member, she, you know, bought another property to try to help give her family a financial wherewithal. This is going to sound a lot like Marilyn Mosby, who bought, you know, you're told buy real estate is what we tell people, buy real estate. This is the way to build wealth. And this is what she did. That home they're claiming. Well, she was supposed to live in the home, but she lives in New York. She's attorney general of New York. She's not going to live in Virginia, too. But they're trying to say, well, she got a favorable mortgage by making it a primary residence, but then let it get rented out. Here's the problem with that thinking. This is also what they accuse Lisa Cook of at the Treasury Department. They're saying that she, I mean, not the Treasury Department, that at the Fed, at the Federal Reserve, they said Lisa Cook, African American woman, did the same thing. They're trying to say she should be fired for doing that. Well, guess who else did that? Treasury Secretary Scott Besant. Let me read from Reuters. Treasury Secretary Scott Besant previously agreed to occupy two different houses at the same time as his primary residence. Bloomberg News reported an agreement similar to one that President Donald Trump has called mortgage fraud in his unprecedented bid to fire Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. The Bloomberg report published Wednesday cites Besson's mortgages with lender bank of America and his pledge in 20077 to primarily occupy homes in New York and Massachusetts. So it appears that Donald Trump should probably be arresting and having indicted Scott Bessant because Scott Bessant did exactly what he says Leticia James did. Here's the difference. In Leticia James case, the claim is that she got $119,000. She, she saved $19,000 by doing the mortgages. That way, no prosecutor could be found in the Department of Justice to say that that is a crime that they would bring an indictment on. And because they said to Pamela, Joe, that's not really a crime, we're not really going to indict this lady, they were fired. Donald Trump then sends his dm, which because you know, his little tiny fingers are elderly. He's 79 years old, he doesn't know how to use DMs. He made it public and he demanded that she be prosecuted. And what he's mad about, as the congresswoman just said, is that she must in him. What did Donald Trump do in order to get this civil trial against him and charged civilly by Letitia James, who she could have charged him criminally, but she did it civilly. He was taking properties in New York, saying they were valued at $10 million when he wanted to get a loan, and then saying, oh, they're only worth $2 million when he wanted to get insurance, meaning he built the state of New York not for $19,000, but for half a billion dollars. That's why he got fined half a billion dollars. So you're telling me that Donald Trump, who defrauded the state of New York to the tune of half a billion dollars over time, is saying that he's not a criminal and that charging him civilly with that, a case that Letitia James won in court, that's wrong. But that she's a criminal because she had like a little house in Virginia that her family members are renting out? We know that this is bullshit. We know that it is not a crime. We know that she did nothing wrong. And we know that Donald Trump is butthurt because he got caught doing crime over and over and over again. And he can't handle like a big boy the fact that he was busted and the fact that he was brought dead to rights on being a fraudster to his own home state. And so now he's like, I need revenge. I need other people to feel my pain. We're going to stand with Leticia James. Let's move on and talk about new media. Now, we all know this new media outlet right here, which, by the way, we passed 326,000 subscribers today. We're very excited about that. So we're well on our way to our half a million by my birthday, December 8th. That's the date. But new media is important, and it, it, it is on a hairpin because right wing billionaires are buying up a lot of the new media, they're buying up a lot of the social media, and they're also buying up the traditional media to make it so that they can lock all of it down as pro Maga and also pro Bibi Netanyahu, pro Israel. So they want to make sure that both traditional media and social media are unified in their pro maga, pro Right wing Israel message constantly. Right. So it is really important that we also start talking about alternative platforms that are outside of that system. One of those is called Fan Base. It was developed by Isaac Hayes iii. Yes, that he's the son of that Isaac Hayes, the famous music star. And his partner in this enterprise is Tamisha Harris, who is a veteran news producer who's worked for abc, CBS and also msnbc. Ms. Now we call it today. So let's bring in Tamisha and Isaac. Thank you all for being here. We're going to talk a little bit here. There we go. There goes Tamisha. We see her and there's Isaac. Talk about this new media venture that you guys have going. I will start with you, Isaac. When did Fan Base start? What does Fan Base do? Oh, you got a little echo. Hold on. We're going to have you hold on. We're going to make sure that you don't have too much echo. His echo cancellation off. Okay, go ahead, try again. When did it start and what does it do? So it's like there's 10 of you and they're all, they're all. Their computers are too close. Oh, I think your computers are too close together. Okay, so what we're gonna have to have to ask. Have any headphones you guys could put in a computer? Oh, you're good now. Okay, there we go. All right, Isaac, go for it.
- [109:08]
D
Yeah. So we started in 2018 and I raised capital for the business and the end of 2020, 21 to 2021. So so far we raised about $2023 million independently. Family. It's a social media platform that allows you to monetize your content free download, free use. Think of it as a version, a next generation version of what Instagram, TikTok and YouTube are all together.
- [109:40]
B
So you're right, you can do audio clips, you can do still clips. Like you can do everything you do on Instagram, TikTok and IG all at the same time. TikTok. Tamisha, you come from where? I come from traditional media. Talk about your journey because you, you've worked with Mehdi Hassan, you've worked with, you know, the old MSNBC folks, you've worked at abc, cbs. Talk about your journey from traditional media to this new media venture. So. Hi, Joy. It's so good to be here. I am still in news and I reached out to Isaac. Isaac has been doing a fantastic job with fanbase and I reached out to Isaac because as you said before, the media, legacy media and social media is now being run by the government, it really is about to be, if not already government managed. And what that tells us is that the stories that are incredibly important, the stories that our viewers need to see, will be suppressed. They'll be, particularly with this administration. There'll be information that we need to get to people that won't, that they won't get it when they need it. And so that's when I reached out to Isaac and I said the only place that I can think of where we can get our stories out uncensored was fan base to get the real story. So I keep saying this would be our underground railroad to get the information that we need to get out. So this is the story that you're seeing out of Chicago. There needs to be a way for us to get information, get the news out to the people before disaster flies their area or before ice gets to their area or whatever is coming next. We need to be able to get this information out to people. And for me, that's. We all know that social media is where people are getting their news. It's right there on their phones. And fan base is an emergency in that way. So that's why I reached out to Isaac. That's why I am pushing fan base, because I see what's happening in the news and we see what's happening in our country. And we're going to need to get the information real quick so people can act. We're going to need to organize quickly and fan base is the home for that. Fan base is where we should be organizing here on social media. Right. And Isaac, what kind of users are being attracted to fan base?
- [112:15]
D
Excuse me, one more time.
- [112:17]
B
No, what kind of users are getting attracted to fan base? Who are you seeing coming on? Because I know you guys have a few famous folks, you have, you know what, what is the user sort of demographic of who's coming on?
- [112:27]
D
Mostly African American. Our user base is largely African American. Our two largest groups are 18 to 24, 24 to 35 year olds. People that are looking for something that isn't suppressing their content, isn't minimizing their visibility. These apps suppress your content. A lot of people that are afraid Tick Tock is about to change drastically because of what, of what's going on under new ownership and the people that also want to own part of a social media platform. One of the big parts about fan base is we're independently funded startups. So I didn't get, I didn't raise capital for the app through venture dollars. I got it from investments that People have given to us. So raising $23 million from about 23,000 investors is how we're doing it. We're in the middle of a round right now. We're closing at the end of December, about December 17th. So I want as many people to own the platform, especially black people, because we are the ones that make the Instagrams and the tick tocks worth 300, $400 billion. Actually just saw an article today about its Instagram's birthday. Like Instagram is now 15 years old. They would have never sold to Facebook. It would be about a $500 billion company.
- [113:40]
B
Wow. Million.
- [113:41]
D
But it'd be worth 500 billion. So our ability to scale platforms to hundreds of billions of dollars as black culture, because that's what we do. We are the test group, we are the, we are the focus group for all of social media. We say we want dms, we say we want retweets, we say we want filters, we say we want all these things. And they put that functionality in these platforms and then other people on those platforms become the celebrities and the largest, largest stars and get the lion's share. And then on the back end, you have a bunch of VCs that, a small group of people, maybe 10 or 15 people that own it, that become multi billionaires. And so the community on fan base is a community of people that are owners in the platform and users as well. And that's what I'm encouraged.
- [114:24]
B
Yeah, absolutely. And Tamisha, last word to you because, you know, Tick tock of going under the ownership of the Ellison's potential or the Murdoch, those, the two names that are getting thrown around, I mean, that is going to fundamentally change people's access to information. You've already had, including people like Netanyahu, say that They've got a TikTok problem and it's difficult to get their sort of version of events out because so many young people are getting their news from TikTok, they're getting their news from Instagram. What is the risk as those. Well, I shouldn't say what is the risk? What's the opportunity for fan base as potentially platforms like TikTok break bad? It's the opportunity for fan base and the opportunity for creators is to be able to come onto a platform. We know that we are the engine to the culture and we are the cultural engine to these, to these platforms. So the opportunity for fan base is to be able to provide a home for creators. That can be. When you get, I liken it to. When you go to times Square. And you see all of these, you know, you see all the lights and the cameras. And we want creators to be able to come on fan base and promote their brand. We want them to feel at home. We want them to be themselves, we want them to be creative, and we want their fans to follow them. And it's an opportunity for them to be able to be themselves. Absolutely. And, and so that's, that's what we want. But, but even outside of creators, we want this to be a home for. For a news source as well, for people to get the information they need urgently to get the new, the true news, the accurate news when they need it. Because right now we are. We are really in a crisis. We are in a desperate situation. So it's twofold. Well, we are going to make sure that the Joy Reed show has a presence on fan base. We're working on that now. Isaac, last word to you. How do people, if they want to invest, if they want to get on, give us a direction on how people can get on fanbase or access it.
- [116:30]
D
We're on both iOS and Android, so just look for fan base, the purple icon with the white F lightning bolt logo. And if you want to invest in fanbase, you can go to start engineering. The minimum to invest is $399. And our raise closes December 17th. So we're urging everybody, we're already at 13.3 million and the race closes at $17 million. So I would love for everybody watching your show to become investors and fan base.
- [116:57]
B
Well, there you go. You can own. You can be your own mogul. You can own part of a growing social media platform. Isaac Hayes III and Tamisha, thank you very much. Tamisha Harris, thank you both very much for being here. Really appreciate y'. All. Best of luck and we will see you soon.
- [117:11]
D
Thank you very much.
- [117:12]
B
Thank you very much. All right, y', all. So we're gonna. We're gonna close this out. We wanna very quick. We're going a little tiny bit over, but I really wanted to close this out by hailing up some of the stars of the resistance. It is not just applications like fan base and people who are entrepreneurs who are trying to make this thing, to turn this ship of autocracy around. Let me very quickly play just a few pieces of sound. This first one is Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, who has responded to the ice invasion of his city with the mayoral equivalent of now what you ain't going to do, what you're not going to do is. And here he is.
- [117:45]
D
Ice lies and People die.
- [117:47]
B
When protesters confronted federal immigration agents in Brighton park on Saturday, they were met with pepper balls and more repression. CPD responded to attempt to de escalate the situation, and ICE tear gassed our police officers. Tear gassing the women and men who serve as Chicago Police Department officers is.
- [118:07]
D
Not how we make our city safer.
- [118:09]
A
These actions tell us simple truth.
- [118:11]
B
If we allow this administration to take away due process for anyone, we will allow them to take away due process for everyone. Today we are signing an executive order aimed at reining in this out of control administration. The order establishes ICE free zones.
- [118:27]
D
That means that city property and unwilling.
- [118:30]
B
Private businesses will no longer serve as.
- [118:33]
D
Staging grounds for these raids.
- [118:35]
B
Our school parking lots are not for ICE to load their weapons. They are for Chicagoans who drop their kids off to learn. Our libraries are not for ICE to prepare for a raid. They're for Chicagoans to read and relax. Our parks are not for ICE to set up checkpoints. They are for Chicagoans to play and enjoy. Private establishments can partner with us to make it clear that private property is private property.
- [119:01]
A
And ICE cannot enter establishments without a valid warrant.
- [119:04]
B
Private entities may voluntarily choose to display signage to designate their property as part of a citywide network of community spaces that stand together in affirming the safety d dignity and belonging of all of our residents.
- [119:18]
A
By extending this protection beyond city owned.
- [119:20]
B
Land, the order builds a broad civic.
- [119:23]
A
Shield that limits the reach of harmful enforcement practices.
- [119:27]
B
It strengthens neighborhood solidarity, and it reaffirms Chicago's role as a welcoming city. The fact is, we cannot allow them to rampage throughout our city with no checks or balances. Nobody is above the law. If we break the law, you should be held accountable. If Congress will not check this administration, then Chicago will. Ooh. Amen. Amen. Hallelujah. That is how you do it. ICE is not welcome here. I think that that is a. That is the sort of granular beginning of a movement. You should be able to designate your restaurant, your home, your parks, your libraries. ICE not welcome here, and they should not be. They shouldn't be able to go use the bathroom in your restaurant if you don't want them in there. They can't come in there. They can't come in your library. They can't stage in your school parking lot. ICE go somewhere else. Go pee. You know, somewhere else. Pee in the street. Let's go to the next one. Because every. Every revolution, every invasion, every war needs a hero. And in the. In the city of Portland, Oregon, the hero. Hero does not wear a cape. He goes Ribbit the Portland frog, the hero that we didn't know we needed. Here is the Portland frog shaking his chubby belly at the Trump troops. The Trump Gestapo is no match with the shaky wiggly belly. There he is. Shake your belly. Shake it, shake it, shake it, shake it, shake it. That is. That is the hero that I don't think any of us realize. We need this adorable chubby frog. Let's see, we have another, another shot of him. This is when he confronted the violence. Look at this. They pepper bombed the frog. How can you be so afraid of a. Of a giant? And look what he did. His reaction was to do was to dance. His reaction was to. Was to wiggle it just a little bit. He said, you pepper sprayed me, but I almost. Keep wiggling. The frog has a voice. This is G3. We're going to hear the frog explain why his activism is as it is. The frog speaks. Look at him. Oh, he's overplayed again. Okay, wiggle at him again. Play it again, huh? Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle. He gets. He gets more intense with the wiggle. Tell me a little bit about what brings you out here, here day after day. And in a frog costume, no less. Well, I come out here day in and day out since June because I am worried about my community. I am concerned with what is happening in my community and with what the Trump administration is enabling these ICE agents, these DHS agents, these federal agents to do to my community members day in and day out. And yes, I don't want to see anybody treated inhumanely and to see this happen to my community members, my friends, my family, my neighbors, it's unacceptable. So I'm out here protesting in a fraud costume to. Especially in a frog costume just to show how ridiculous the notion that we are violent terrorists is. Just to showcase how that narrative is wrong and does a lot more damage than good. The frog is anti fascist. An anti fascist frog. Can we put up the. Donald Trump being warned. This is Donald Trump. Look at it. A second inflatable frog has now been spotted wiggling through Portland. Donald Trump being warned by Marco Rubio. There are more wiggly frogs. We've got to protect ourselves. The frogs are fighting fascism. I think we have a poster. Frogs vs Fascism is G6 because they're fighting for us. The frogs are fighting for our liberties. We love a frog and especially we love a brave. There it is. Frogs versus fashion frogs. Is that nice? Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle. We have one more G7, which is the fun poster, which the movie will one day be made about this brave and valiant frog who fought for the liberty of all humanity. There he is. The Portland War, a film by Kin Boo. Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle. Free the frog. And just to get a sense of how the stupid that we're fighting, can we just really quickly, I know we're running out of time. I know it's Friday night. I know you guys want to get to your Friday night, but can we just play. Let's play a couple of clips of RFK Jr. This is what we're fighting. This is G A RFK Jr. Speaking. There's many, many other confirmation studies. There's two studies that show children who are circumcised early have double the rate of autism. It's highly likely because they're given Tylenol. So, you know, none of this is positive, but all of it is stuff that we should be paying attention to. But, you know, there's a tremendous amount of proof or evidence, I would say as a non doctor, but I've studied.
- [124:26]
D
This a long time ago.
- [124:27]
B
You know, I meant you said it a long time. Time. Have you studied a long time, Donald Trump? Have you also studied babies in their placenta? Have you studied the placenta, Trump? Because you studied the Thailand or you studied a very long time? Studied a very long time. It studied a very long time. I've known you. There's a lot of proof of it. There's a lot of proof of the time. They're now causing this and it was a profound success. It will affect Every American for 100 years. And you should be getting five words accolades on that. I'll say one other thing about Tylenol only because of this. This morning before I came in here, somebody showed me a TikTok video of a pregnant woman, eight months pregnant. She is an associate professor at the Columbia Medical School, and she is saying F. Trump and gobbling Tylenol with her baby in her placenta. And the level of Trump derangement syndrome has now left political landscapes and it is now in the realm of pathology. And a mother could overwhelm millions of years of maternal instinct to put her baby at risk. And all you have to do is look at the studies which you and I talked about. There are things in the age it's not this positive that causes autism. It is so suggestive that anybody who takes stuff during pregnancy, unless they have to is irresponsible. It's Marco Rubio's face during that. That just says, my soul is dead. He's saying, my soul. My soul has died in this moment. I'm sitting here with these idiots. This dude was on heroin like 10 seconds ago, and now he thinks he's gobbling. He's gobbling center. Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, frog. That's my answer to everything. Now. Portland, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle. And Chicago wiggle, wiggle, wiggle. We need a frog in every city. Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up. It said it gets worried. That is the war that Trump claims that that city, that Portland with the wiggly frog is. He needs to invade it because it's under siege from antifa, the anti fascist frog. All of this may be why our Friday night moment of joy comes from heaven. From heaven. From the late, great primate expert, Jane Goodall, who went to her reward this past week and whose remedy for all of this, which she designated only be released when she was gone from this plane, is to beam these bastards into space. Take it away. Do you have people that you don't like? Absolutely. There are people I don't like, and I would like to put them on one of Musk's spaceships and send them all off to the planet he's sure he's going to discover. Would he be. Would he be one of them? Oh, absolutely. He'd be the host. And you can imagine who I'd put on that spaceship, who, along with Musk, would be Trump and some of Trump's real supporters. And then I would put Putin in there and I would put President Sheep. I'd certainly put Netanyahu in there and his far right government. Put them all on that spaceship. You send them off in the place where I am now. I look back over my life. I look back at the world I've left behind. What message do I want to leave? I want to make sure that you all understand that each and every one of you has a role to play. You may not know it, you may not find it, but your life matters. And you are here for a reason. And I just hope that that reason will become apparent. As you live through your life, I want you to know that whether or not you find that role that you're supposed to play, your life does matter. And that every single day you live, you make a difference in the world. And you get to choose the difference that you make. I want you to understand that we are part of the natural world. And even today, where the planet is dark, there still is hope. Don't lose hope. If you lose hope, you become apathetic and do nothing. Above all, I want you to think about the fact that we are part. When we're on planet Earth, we are part of Mother Nature. We depend on Mother nature for clean air, for water, for food, for clothing, for everything. And as we destroy one ecosystem after another, as we create worse climate change, worse loss of diversity, we have to do everything in our power to make the world a better place for the children alive today and for those that will follow. You have it in your power to make a difference. Don't give up. There is a future for you. Do your best while you're still on this beautiful planet Earth that I look down upon from where I am now. God bless Dr. Jane Goodall. She gets the last word, as Lawrence O' Donnell would say. Thank you so much for tuning in to the Joy Reid Show. Please be sure to hit like and subscribe. Please share this episode Support new media As I said, We've passed 326,000 subscribers on this channel. We're well on our way to our 500,000 by my birthday on December 8th. Thank you to everyone who is a Team TJRSP member. And I want to note, my final note here is we want to get one subscriber for every dollar that Donald Trump was fined by that judge who originally ruled that he owed a record fine to the state of New York. That was $500 million. We want one subscriber for every one of those or 500,000. Or I guess, what is that a th000 subscribers for every once we want. We want 500,000. That is our goal. I think I. I think my math is bad, Jason. My math is bad. But you get what I'm saying. We want to get to 500,000.
- [131:00]
D
We want to get to 500,000 birthday. Yes.
- [131:03]
B
Keeping it simple. We appreciate you guys. We're going to stand with Letitia James and we're always going to stand with you and the frog. And finally, my last word is wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle. Have a great weekend. Thanks for watching Joy Reach show. See you guys on Monday. Have a good one. Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle.